Barack Obama, known as Barack Hussein Obama II at the time of birth, was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. He is is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. He is the first African American to hold the office.
After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. After serving for a couple of years as a writer and editor for Business International Corp., a research, publishing, and consulting firm in Manhattan, he took a position in 1985 as a community organizer on Chicago’s largely impoverished Far South Side.
In 1988, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black person to be president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.
After receiving his law degree, Obama moved to Chicago and became active in the Democratic Party. He organized Project Vote, a drive that registered tens of thousands of African Americans on voting rolls and that is credited with helping Democrat Bill Clinton win Illinois and capture the presidency in 1992.
Turning to elective politics, he represented the 13th district from 1997 until 2004 in the Illinois Senate, when he ran for the U.S. Senate. In 2004 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating Republican Alan Keyes in the first U.S. Senate race in which the two leading candidates were African Americans.
He wrote his first book, Dreams from My Father (1995), which is the story of Obama’s search for his biracial identity by tracing the lives of his now-deceased father and his extended family in Kenya. His second book, The Audacity of Hope a mainstream polemic on his vision for the United States, was published in 2006, was a best seller.
Obama was elected over Republican John McCain and was inaugurated alongside Joe Biden on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
In 2009, Obama signed an executive order to close the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within one year. His executive order encountered strong Congressional resistance, and the prison remained open after he left office. He also signed a bill, The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which became a law. The bill made it easier for people to challenge unequal pay complaints and was designed to help address the wage gap between men and women.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was also signed into law by President Obama in 2009 while in Denver, Colorado. The purpose of the act was to save and create jobs and to provide relief to those most affected by the economic crisis of 2008-2009. In March 2009, Obama hosted the first-ever online discussion at the White House where he live-streamed himself answering questions asked by people online via the administration’s website.
In October 2009, Obama lifted a 22-year-old ban that restricts those with HIV/AIDS from entering the United States. In January 2010, Obama announced the Volcker Rule, which seeks to restrict U.S. banks from engaging in certain speculative investments that would not be in the best interest of the customer. In February 2010, Obama declared more than $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to Southern Company to construct two new nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia. In March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, became law which was the most significant regulatory makeover of the U.S. healthcare system since the 1960s. Under the new regulations, Obama sought to increase quality, affordability, and access to healthcare.
In July 2010, The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed by President Obama which gave regulators stronger authority when in breaking up large companies and attempted to protect the consumer by restricting practices in consumer loans and credit cards.
In May 2011, Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden, who was the leader of Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the U.S. terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In October 2011, President Obama announced that U.S. troops would be home from Iraq by December and that the U.S. role in the war was over. Obama signed an executive order that froze the assets of the Iranian government held within the United States due to Iran engaging in what Obama called, deceptive practices.
The Child Care and Development Block Grant of 2014 was signed into law by Barack Obama which provided grants to states so they can assist low-income families in finding child care for their children.
In January 2016, Obama announced historic agreement with Iran to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Iran met conditions for the United States to begin lifting some economic sanctions.
Obama left office in January 2017 and continues to reside in Washington, D.C.
